(More stuff on Silas. This chapter and the next one will wrap up stuff about his past.)
Bombs and Bots
4 Years Ago
"Remind me again what I'm doing Adam?" I ask, Adam sighs and shakes his head. "Like Khan's document said if you looked beyond the cover: it's that you need to destroy a Schnee Company manufacturing plant. A big one."
Been a few months since the coup that overthrew the previous head of the white fang, and we've gotten a bit more...militant as you would say. Khan is the name of our new chairman and heading bringing up recruits while people like me and Adam go out on operations Kahn sends out.
And there's a new base of operations for us right here in dear old Mistral: the Den. Fitting actually: because we are now wolves ready to claw and bite at mankind. But where we are is just an FOW camp site in Vale, some guys and gals have to be on watch for Grimm out here.
"Am I getting back up on this?"
"Just me and Blake for this. It'll be more stealth than anything else."
I chuckle at that, "What's so funny?" Adam asks. "You know I can't do stealth Adam...but I guess I need to get out of my comfort zone every once and a while right?" Hearing that Adam chuckles a bit too, "Yeah...I know what you mean."
"Sir!" A new voice called in, a big muscular guy with short black hair: wearing the new uniform for the White Fang along with metal gauntlets, and a Grimm mask covering his whole face.
Gotta admit...the new masks are pretty neat.
"Yes? What is it?" Adam asks the guy
"I came at the behest of Ms. Belladonna. She says that she is ready to go when you both are."
"Thank you. You're dismissed."
With a salute the guy heads off without another word. Looking to Adam he now has on his own mask: quite a lot like the standard mask that members of the White Fang have now only with red flame-like designs on them. And his weapons in hand, a crimson colored chokutÅ named Wilt, and it's sheath/rifle Blush.
"You ready to go Silas?"
"Let me get my mask on and get Waxing and Waning I'll meet you and Blake outside." I tell him, he nods and leaves the doorway. I head into the corner and look inside a bag: inside are twin matte black and pearl white sawed-off shotguns and my weapons, with a waxing crescent on one and a waning crescent on the other.
And my mask: a tan-white teardrop shaped mask with curling horns coming out of the forehead of it just above the eyeholes, and red markings around the eyeholes as well. Putting it on I grab my weapons and head outside.
There waiting are Adam and Blake.
I can feel my heart skip a beat seeing her, thank God for the mask or else she'd see I was probably beet red as is.
"Good to see you again Silas." Blake says with a small smile on her face, oh man. Think Silas! Think!
"Took the words out of my mouth." I reply
"Now that we're all ready. Shall we head out?" Adam asks, Blake nods and so do I. Off we go.
Schnee Company warehouse. Midnight
In all honesty I wasn't exactly prepared for dealing with how big that the place was. I know Adam said it would be big, but this place is huge let me tell you: place is five stories tall with four smoke pipes coming out of them marked with the Schnee Company logo, place is surrounded by what I can guess if a fifteen foot tall chain-link fence with barbed wire wrapped around the top to prevent some sneaky sneaks from climbing over.
Too bad, so sad.
Me, Blake and Adam were surveying the place through a scope attached on Blush.
"So Adam 'ol buddy 'ol pal. How is a trio of Faunus going to bring down a place that more than likely has guards filled on the inside like cockroaches in a cereal box?"
Adam pulls up a bag and zips it open: inside are plastic explosives, each with a count down timer and a detonator for every six or so. Number of them in the bag is twelve. And along with them, three walkie-talkies
This is my days as a six year old all over again!...with more terrorism, and a cute girl I have a crush on. But alas...she's with Adam she says, I still love her however.
"You and Blake will make your way into the facility, plant these explosives on spots that would either cause a chain reaction of larger explosions or structural weaknesses, set them prime for detonation the moment you put them on something, get out, and we bring it crashing down." Adam explains before handing us the three walkie-talkies. "Understood?"
"Yes." Blake states with a nod
"One question: why me and Blake?" I ask a bit curiously, call me paranoid but there may be something up with this.
"You have shotguns and my Darling a pistol. I have a rifle, it would be best if I keep back and let you know when someone is coming and when you can move." He explains again, well shit now I feel dumb.
"Riiiiiight, sorry about that. Just wondering."
I grab six explosives and stand up, "No time to waste Kitten." I say before sliding down the hill and darting my way to the fence and taking a knee, Blake showing up not to long afterwards and giving me a glare.
"What?"
"'Kitten'? Really?" She dully asks, I can only shrug
"Not too much time to think up nicknames when I'm working you know." I reply back, she gives a wry grin in response.
"Of course I understand. Sparky." She replies with snark, I could only frown which she can't see.
"You don't call me Sparky and I will be sure to make tuna sandwiches for you for a month. Deal?" I ask, she knits her eyebrows and looks around. "Deal."
"You guys hear this alright? Over." Adam's voice buzzes through one of the speakers, Blake holds her's up over her mouth. "We can hear you just fine. Over."
I follow the same thing she did, "You see anything? Over."
"Oddly enough...I don't see anything: no cameras, no guards, nothing at all. Over."
What? That doesn't make any sense what so ever, why the hell would a manufacturing plant have no security at all?
"Alright, Blake and I are going to head on through and plant the charges. Over." I state before looking back at Blake.
"You ready to go in and blow a building to smithereens? Breaking the law?" I ask,
"Not like we're going to encounter some resistance." She says before unfolding a thick, gray, cleaver like sheath with a sharp-looking edge on it. Gambol Shroud: Blake's 'Variant Ballistic Chain Scythe', from what I've seen of it this sheath part can function as a weapon, the real weapon itself is a katana that can transform into either a pistol or she can wrap the ribbon she has around her arm and use it as a kusarigama.
I just have shotguns that turn into axes...looky me.
Blake makes two quick slashes and cuts a hole big enough for the both of us to fit through. I gesture her to go in first, once she crawls through the hole in the fence I follow right behind her.
"Alright." I mutter to myself, "Let's go." On those words we make our way to a door, I test the nob of it: locked.
I shrug and smash the glass of the door, a bit of pain doesn't hurt me. I feel around and grab the other door nob on the side, grabbing a small bit of it there's a click and I open the door.
"Open sesame." I state.
"Adam. We're in. Over." Blake speaks into the radio/walkie-talkie/whatever you want to call it.
"Alright, get in there and plant the charges then get out of there." He orders
"Heyheyheyheyyyyy, you forgot to say 'Over'. Over." I whine a bit just to annoy him a bit, Adam groans over the channel.
"Just get it done. Over."
Looking around on the inside there's something a bit...odd here. There's conveyor belts and such, metal and wiring, and crates labeled: DO NOT OPEN UNTIL TOMORROW.
"Blake?"
"Yes? What is it?"
"You...you set up some of the charges, I need to check up on something real quick." I quietly tell her before setting my charges down heading over to one of the crates, it's the size of a person. Made out of plywood and the like.
I unfold Waxing and Waning before chop it down to bits showing something quite interesting:
A robot. An Atlesian Knight.
Body of the machine is humanoid in shape and a metallic dark-gray in color, with red highlights on certain parts of its body, particularly its 'face' and chestplate. Because there must be the threatening colors of black, gray or red too the damned things.
The 'face' has a lower jaw but is otherwise completely blank, with a smooth, bright-red surface and no facial features.
"Blake!" I call out, no response but echoes of an empty building. I narrow my eyes before looking back at the robot before it's arm grabs me by the throat, now glowing red with a visor over it's face. Cold steel grip right around my neck.
"Identify your-" the thing speaks in monotone, right before I blast a fist-sized hole in it's chest with Waxing. Dropping me to the ground and leaving me catching my breath...and it sputtering and sparking out. The hole smoking
"ID-D-Dentifffffyyyyy youRRRRSElllll-" it electronically stutters out before dying, footsteps now. Better safe than sorry, I turn and aim my weapons at...Blake.
I sigh and fold Waxing and Waning back up, "Nearly could've blown your head off Blake. And sorry about that."
She shakes her head, "I heard you fire off a shot. What happened?" She asks sounding concerned, I gesture to the destroyed robot.
"This is Atlesian military. What's it doing here?" She curiously asks observing the metal man, "Could be any number of reasons: for one the Schnees may have paid off the military for some new tougher security, second theory is the most likely to me...they're probably making them. You see anything setting up the charges?" I ask her
She cups her chin and nods, "I did come across documents involving these machines. And since the Schnee Company is the biggest in Dust related issues: would make sense the military of Atlas would be paying handsomely for them to have access to their quarries and have Dust power their weapons of war here."
Girl's a smart one, though it's just a hypothesis. It may be a good one at.
"I also went ahead and set your charges up as well." She says smiling a bit, I blink at that. "When did-"
"When you were making your way to the crates."
I sigh and shake my head, "Alright let's get going." I mutter. The two of us make our way back to Adam who has the detonator in hand.
"Ready for a show?" He asks sounding a bit...sinister, I nod.
Adam snickers a bit before pressing his thumb on the button of the detonator: a second later there's an earth shattering KABOOM, the building goes up in a mushroom cloud. The shockwave nearly knocks me off my feet from the force of it.
"We should get going." Adam states as he walks off, looking to Blake she seems distracted. "Something wrong there?" I ask
She shakes her head, "I-It's nothing. Come on...we should get going." She says walking away, "Ok..." I mutter, "Love you." I whisper to myself
"What was that?"
"N-Nothing Blake...nothing at all."
Home, 6 hours later
I open the door to my home and enter, closing the door quietly as possible to not wake up my parents. There's a note and a little box on it, I pull the note from under the box and read it:
'Dear Silas,
We have told you time and time again how much we love you and are proud of you. From the day you were born we have had a feeling you would be doing great things for so many people, while we may have sometimes argued over some issues we always kept loving one another didn't we? You are our little puppy, Silas! And no matter what happens from now until the whole world comes crumbling down: we will always be there for you, in your heart and your soul.
Love,
Mom and Dad'
I felt my heart swell up, a smile coming up on my face. Opening up the little box I see a silver pocket watch that looks like the moon itself, opening it up I see two things: the clock ticking away in one circle, and in the other a picture of my mom holding a sleeping baby me...my dad looking at me with a proud expression on his face.
I close it and put the watch in my pocket, I grab a piece of paper and write down a letter myself:
'You two are always so sappy, but I wouldn't have it any other way from the bestest parents someone could ask for.
Love,
Silas.'
I put the paper down on and head to my room and swap into my pajamas, getting the watch out and opening it up to see the picture again. I watched it, smiling until I went alseep.
(Mean't to send this out on Halloween, but still. Consider this a post-Halloween treat.)